A film student at the University of Kinshasa was killed and another was injured over the weekend by a police officer from a nearby police station. The police recognize a mistake, but assure in a statement that it is by mistake that a warning shot reached the victims. The Academic Secretary-General of the University of Kinshasa urged the students to remain calm and demanded that justice be done.
With our special correspondent in Kinshasa, Sonia Rolley
A group of fifteen students left on Saturday to record a film in a peripheral district, a fiction in costumes, to be produced as part of their studies. A university assistant was also present to supervise them.
As soon as they arrived and settled, a policeman showed up to ask them for money. A request that he repeat throughout the film. Eventually, he even returns with his boss and a colleague, and they ask for money again. The assistant refuses and the police arrest him. The students decide to follow them. This is where the versions differ.
Police say the students were violent before the shots were fired, forcing one of the police to pull his gun and fire warning shots. While they were on the students’ side, it is said that the police first abused the assistant, then that Honoré Shama Kwete, the nursing student, tried to intervene and questioned their behavior.
The fleeing shooter
Another disagreement: police assure that Honoré Shama Kwete was killed by an inadequately trained agent who tried to fire warning shots. This version brushes the students who assure that several shots were fired. The first was in the air, but on the orders of the Deputy Commissioner, a police officer was alleged to have shot Honoré Shama Kwete twice, including once while on the ground.
The days of the second victim are not in danger. She was taken to the hospital and treated. Two police officers, including the deputy commissioner, were arrested and were to be translated on Monday, July 26, before the military prosecutor, the Congolese National Police (PNC) promises. The third, the shooter, is on the go. The sub-police station to which the accused police belong was set on fire after the murder.
Our job was to record a movie.
Testimony of a woman present during the student’s death
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